1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a medical instrument.
2. Related Art
In recent years, regarding regenerative medicine in the field of ophthalmology, a treatment method including culturing retinal pigment epithelial cells in a sheet shape and implanting the epithelial cells under the retina in the fundus of a patient's eye has been proposed (see JP-A-1997-501303).
Also, according to a technology proposed in recent years, a sheet of retinal pigment epithelial cells as a graft is made by causing cells acquired from the patient or another person (donor) to differentiate into retinal pigment epithelial cells. This technology is discussed by, for example, Y. Hirami, M Takahashi, and six others in “Generation of retinal cells from mouse and human induced pluripotent stem cells”, Neuroscience Letters, 2009 Jul. 24, Volume 458, Issue 3, p 126-131.
In the above technologies, it is not easy to perform surgery for transplanting (placing) the prepared transplant under the retina in the fundus of the patient's eye. U.S. Pat. No. 6,159,218 proposes a surgical instrument for facilitating such transplant surgery.